


conflagration

by canticle



Series: guide you home [1]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, Falling Out of Love, Friends as Family, Growing Apart, Growing Up, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Support Networks, falling back in love, ghosting, gone bad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 03:35:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16824295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canticle/pseuds/canticle
Summary: Some part of you is always going to be sixteen and so desperately in love that you feel like a house on fire, but for your own sake, way back then, you had to let the flames go out. It's ashes now, ashes coating the foundation of what you once had, but underneath it all the bones are still there, still standing strong.





	conflagration

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this in 8 hours yesterday in some sort of gross, spiteful mockery of all the words i didn't write for nano
> 
> thanks to the pegoryu server for encouraging my garbage ilu all thanks for watering me w ur tears and double thanks to music for looking this over before i throw it into the void
> 
> this is, under all the shitposting, an incredibly, incredibly personal story to me and, i believe, to a lot of the people who shared the experience of writing it with me yesterday. i hope it can resonate with you as much as it resonated with them.

There’s something powerful and unique about the passion of teenagerhood, where everything is the most important thing that you've ever felt and when something goes wrong it's like the whole world has crumbled. You meet a transfer student, you beat weird metaphysical shit up with the transfer student, you love the transfer student fully, wholly, deeply, with everything that you can give—

— and then the transfer student leaves.  
  
And you knew it was going to happen, because it was laid out that way from the start, he was always meant to leave, but you’re sixteen and in love like a building on fire and every single part of you fixates on making it work.

So you do. You kiss him goodbye, and you leave him behind in that tiny little town he’s transferred back to, a town that can’t possibly contain what he’s become.

You try to keep it together but you're such a tactile, physical person, and he’s hard to read via text even on the best of days, but you want it to work so much, because you’re sixteen and you’re still sure that if you work for it hard enough the world will bend to your whims and make sure that everything turns out okay.

But you're desperate, and you’re lonely, and you miss him so much it feels like you’re being flayed from the inside. You try to keep things the same as they’ve always been, you try and you try and you _try,_ but nothing ever feels as real as it was when you were together every day. Nothing’s ever as good as reaching out and touching him, laying your head on his shoulder, lacing your fingers together and telling him you love him and seeing his eyes crinkle, his face light up in that way it only ever did for you.

Maybe long distance works for other people, but he’s never been the best communicator unless someone else initiates it, and you get so focused on getting your grades up so maybe, just maybe, you can get into the same college as him, that things start falling by the wayside.

And so your love cools because it has to, because if it doesn't it'll tear you apart. It’ll destroy you.

You still love him, and you miss him, and you'd still throw the entire world into a dumpster fire if it meant rekindling the best thing that ever happened to you but… you can't. You can’t work with him if he doesn’t want to work with you back. You don’t want to be one of those clingy needy people, even when you stare at that “read at:” notifier for hours, feeling the hot burn in the back of your eyes threatening to spill over.

So you slow down, for your own safety, your own sanity. You cut back on the pictures, the notes you leave him throughout the day. You cool it with the "I love you" sent religiously every evening, and he never says anything about missing it.

You’ve never asked for it back, not ever, because that’s not the point; sometimes you just want an acknowledgement that he knows that he's loved, and now you're not getting even that.

And eventually you go a full day without texting.

You check in because he doesn't. You get an acknowledgement and nothing more.

And you go two days, and then three, and spend the nights alternately lying awake or crying into your pillow, because all you've ever wanted is what you had and then lost, and learning how to live without it after you've had it is an awful, horrible, messy process.

But you're young.

You heal.

And eventually thinking about him doesn't hurt, but it's a long, long, _long_ eventually.

You find things to do, because if you're too idle you'll start worrying that sore spot in the back of your mind like a dog licking a wound. You run until you can't breathe, until the ache in your thigh and the burn in your lungs makes you want to throw up everything you've ever eaten. You get a little quieter, a little sadder, and you laugh it off when your friends ask you about it.

You never ever _ever_ tell them anything about this, because if you expose that wound it'll eviscerate you.

And you heal, and you grow, and you go on with your life, but you're not the same person you were and you never will be. There's a kink in the trunk of the tree that makes up your life, and it’s made you shoot off into a direction you never thought you'd go.

You still carry that gem of wanting to be the best you can be for him high and tight in your chest, no matter what. You buckle down, your grades go up, your friends pat you on the back, congratulate you, cheer for you at your track meets, and stand on stage with you when you get your diploma.

You grow and you live and eventually you put him behind you, but there's always some little piece of you that's going to be sixteen and so in love you're aching with it, sixteen and part of the biggest, most important thing you've ever been or ever will be a part of, sixteen and changing the world.

You can never come back from that. All that's left is to go forward.

* * *

  


You graduate high school. You graduate college. The friends you made become more loose-knit as they go on with their lives, because that’s just how it is when you get older. You still see each other, of course; Yusuke paints the walls of Haru's cafe in beautiful, dazzling murals, and Makoto stops by with Ann every chance she gets. Futaba texts you memes and makes you drink the shitty coffee she makes even when you protest, and you?

You run.

Somehow you've never stopped running.

You go through college on a scholarship you'd lost all hope of getting, and you set a record you never, ever thought you'd be able to set, and somewhere inside of you you're still sixteen and hoping he's watching, hoping he sees you being the best that you can be.

Eventually when the running is less satisfying you turn to your other love, the one you've carefully nurtured, the love of helping people, specifically getting them back on their feet after what should be career-ending injuries. It’s something you know first-hand about, and something you're so equipped to deal with.

Your patients always say that you're a huge part of their recovery, that without you cheering them on they couldn't do it, and that's fine, that’s great! You love that! It's a passion you never really thought you'd feel again. You might not ever make a big difference in the world again but here and now? You're making every difference to these people.

You date, too.

Not wildly, not carelessly, but deliberately. (You have a few one-night stands but they're hollow, leaving a bad taste in the back of your mouth, and you shut that down before you're out of college.) Anyone you date you choose wholly, fully, deeply.

And sometimes they don't choose you back, and that’s— well, it's not okay, but you're well equipped to deal with that, too.

One of them lasts for two whole years before she calls it quits on you, and the hurt is so horribly familiar that you walk home to your apartment in a daze, a fog. You’d thought she might be it, you’d been considering—

And then change your mind and run almost all the way to your mother's apartment, the better, bigger one you got for her in a nicer neighborhood, and you cry into her shoulder like you haven't since you were sixteen and so hopelessly in love that you thought you'd be there forever.

* * *

  


There are lots of loves, and lots of different ways to love. You loved before, and you'll love again, but each time it's like a brick through the walls of your glass heart.

You pick up the pieces every time because what else can you do?

You're not just going to leave them there. That's not who you are. You move on, and you grow.

* * *

  


You're 26 now, and you're lonely.

You keep up with the bills and you meet with your friends— they're successful beyond anything you could've imagined for them, and you're so, so happy for them but you _miss_ them. Everyone has their own lives and it feels like no one has time anymore. Some of them are married, some of them are up to their eyeballs in their businesses, and some of them are just busy elsewhere, and that’s fine, but you’re still lonely.

You have a pretty easy routine nowadays; you do your job and you come home, you spend a while cooking, you go to the gym and run until you can't think anymore, you call your ma once or twice a week, and you exist, and it's fulfilling, sure, but is it living? What are you even doing?

Ever since you’ve graduated, all you’ve done is work, work work work. You don’t remember the last time you took a vacation. You’ve barely been out of Tokyo your whole life. Maybe you just need a change of scenery to get rid of how stagnant you feel?

So you book a train.

You don't really check for where, because honestly you just want to _move._ You just want to _go._ You just want to _see._ You take all the time off you've accrued (well, not all of it) and your savings (also not all of it) and you book a train south. You see Mount Fuji, you visit Osaka, you go to the western coast and dunk your feet in the ocean, you go to the eastern coast and run until your legs feel like jelly, and you play the tourist like you never have before.

It's cool, sure, it’s fun and it’s fascinating, but it's also empty in a way. You don't have anyone to share these beautiful sights with; no one to sleep on on the train, no one to nudge in the shoulder and point out a sunset, no one to trade food with at shitty ramen stalls.

It sours the experience a little, and sends you home sooner than you expected to go. But while you're on the platform catching the first train to go back home you think you see—

It couldn't be him. He should be a couple thousand kilometers away. There's lots of guys with black hair and gray eyes, right?

You turn to look, but he's already gone.

You try and put it out of your mind but again on the platform when you exit, just a glimpse, just enough to make you spin on your heel, you think you see something, but… no. It’s nothing.

But it haunts you. It's been ten fucking years, you should be over him! Why is it that just seeing a guy with messy hair and gray eyes is like a punch to the solar plexus?

* * *

  


Going back to the city after your impromptu vacation is a little strange. You don't know what you were trying to accomplish, but you're a little less stressed, a little more relaxed.

But you think you're being followed by a ghost, or maybe the part of you that’s still sixteen and wounded is making you hallucinate one.

Every so often you'll turn your head and catch a glimpse of something achingly familiar out of the corner of your eye, but when you turn fully they’re gone.

At the coffeeshop you frequent every now and then (you still don't really like it but sometimes you need the caffeine in the mornings, even if it makes you melancholy all day) there's a guy sitting at a window seat with a book spread out in front of him in the pale morning light. Just as you turn to take your coffee, the pen he's holding starts dancing through his fingertips in a motion so familiar it hurts.

You're not going to say anything or stare, you have at least a little more impulse control than you did when you were sixteen, but _god_ you wish you could, just to try and burn that back into your brain.

It eats at you until you break down and ask about him, because you’ve been so long without thinking of him, you’ve been doing so well, but this ghost in the corner of your eye has gotten into your brain and is starting to chew a hole into it.

You start with Futaba first; she’d be the one to know most, you think, but she tells you no, last she heard he was still in Inaba. You try Ann next, and she looks at you sympathetically over her crepe but shakes her head. The gold ring on her left hand flashes when she lifts her napkin to wipe her mouth and you can't help but be a little resentful and a lot wistful.

You try so hard to put it out of your mind, but everywhere you turn you see it— a shock of black hair headed away, a flash of grey eyes from a stranger already past, a hundred little mannerisms that buried themselves so deeply within you that you can’t help but catch even the barest little glimpse of them.

You wonder, a little bit, if you’re going mad.

So you do something you haven’t done in a very long time, since before you graduated college at least— you go out to a bar for the evening to lose yourself in the crowd.

You don't think you'll ever like the taste of alcohol— been there, done that when you turned legal, didn't like it, and the thought of your dad put you off it even more— but you like the atmosphere, the nice, cozy darkness, the bartenders always willing to have a pleasant chat. You like to watch the people who go off to dance, fresh and vibrant in a way that you haven't felt for ages.

Only, tonight when you go to a place you've never been, just because, sit down and order something nice and fruity and non-alcoholic, the bartender crossing behind the one serving you drops a glass.

In the silence that follows, you look up and see him

Dark hair. Grey eyes, wide with shock. Pale face, hints of bags under his eyes. No glasses.

_Akira,_ you breathe in hesitant, fearful wonder.

His eyes dart from side to side like he's trapped and searching for a way out.

_Akira?_ you say again, a little more hesitantly.

His shoulders slump.

_Ryuji,_ he acknowledges, like— like it hurts him, and abruptly that ten-year-old wound inside of you shreds open again at full force.

You have so many questions— what is he _doing_ here, why didn't he say anything to anyone else, has he missed you as much as you've missed him— but he's still on the clock, and he ducks down to clean up his mess before you can ask him.

You want to corner him and shake him and squeeze him so tight that he can never let you go again, so he can never ghost you again and break your heart so badly you’ll never be able to piece it back together. You want to stand back and watch this from outside yourself like an impartial observer.

You kinda want to cry.

You don't do any of these things.

Instead you stand up from the bar like your ass is on fire and… you leave. You just go, leave him and the bar with your heart in your throat and heat pressing insistently behind your eyes because you're not ready, you don't think you were ever going to be ready, and that long-aching wound inside of you throbs persistent and aching.

But you go back the next night, because somewhere inside of you you're sixteen and self-destructive, sixteen and chasing the brightest star you've ever seen, sixteen and cradling that star to your chest until it extinguishes itself, because you can't pluck the stars from the sky and expect them to stay lit and burning forever.

You go back because somewhere inside of you you're sixteen and you'll always be chasing it, and you hope that somewhere inside of him there's room for closure.

He avoids you, goes out of his way to avoid you, crosses to the other side of the bar and busies himself in his work, and it hurts in a way that you haven't hurt in a very long time, but you also feel more than you've felt in a very long time, so even though it hurts, you keep going back. You keep taking that hit because the more you think about it the more you realize you need that closure.

There's no way this can be coincidence.

If he'd just _talk_ to you you could finally fucking get _over_ him.

So you work up your courage and you do.

You ask him to talk when he’s free, words that you can barely hear over the pounding of your pulse in your ears, and he looks— surprised? Or panicked? Afraid of you?

It’s not an expression you'd ever thought you'd see on his face, not one you’d ever _wanted_ to see. Not one that belongs there.

After a long moment of awkward quiet,he agrees, which is how you end up in the alley behind the bar at a godawful time of the morning, him in a thin jacket, you in a warm hoodie.

He looks cold, and he looks tired, and he looks more weathered than ten years should wear on a person. A part of you wants to offer him your coat. Part of you wants to sling your arm around his shoulders. Part of you knows that functionally, you're strangers, and that part of you holds yourself back.

So you just...talk.

It's awkward, stilted conversation, and you find yourself more flustered than you should be, scrubbing the back of your head and eyeing the alleyway rather than look at his face. You're two grown goddamn men, you can manage a conversation, right??

He disengages after a while, turns away, and you recognize body language enough to let him go, to let it end. You let it be, and you leave, and you think that you’re done with it, but once you get home, you touch your face, and the tips of your fingers come away wet.

You didn't get the resolution you wanted. That's— it's not fine, but the world doesn't run on straight, easy lines like that.

  
But even though you shouldn’t, you go back because the bar is nice and you like the ambience, and part of you is still sixteen and curled up under your covers crying your heart out over a boy you loved like a house on fire. The ashes are long cold, but the foundation is still there.

He always looks tired. You never see him smile, not even to patrons. The bags under his eyes wax and wane in no discernable pattern.

He's still one of the most beautiful people you’ve ever met.

He still makes your heart clench all up in your throat.

You ask him where Morgana is when he serves you your non-alcoholic beverage one night; he blinks in surprise, and then grimaces, and a pang of sadness goes through you before you can help it. The two of you may not have seen eye to eye a lot, but you're old enough now to admit that you were a real asshole sometimes, and you'd've liked to mend your bridges with him, too.

But then Akira tilts his head and tells you he's just at their apartment, he doesn't like being toted around in a bag to work and back anymore and, a moment later, offers to bring him the next night.

You can't help but grin and nod, a little over-eagerly.

And it's still Mona, when he pokes his grouchy little head out of the bag; there's a little frost around his muzzle and his eyes, but they're sharp as ever, and he still greets you as he ever did.

You take him out for a night on the town, catch up with him over sushi (and it's real weird carting him around, you don't know how Akira does it all the time? You feel like everyone’s staring at you.)

It's surprisingly easy to fall back into a rhythm with him. He's mellowed over the last decade, his physical and verbal claws staying sheathed under velvety paws. You don't ask him anything about Akira, because that...that’d just be too much. But you do ask him about his life, and how he's been, and he talks your ear off happily in between rounds of conveyor-belt sushi.

It's a great evening, honestly one of the best you've had in the last few years, and you're genuinely disappointed when you have to say goodbye.

You think that that might be that this time, but a few nights later Akira sends you a friend request. Your pulse skyrockets.

Of course you accept it, of _course_ you do, but it's just (or maybe not _but_ , but _relievingly enough, it’s just_ ) mostly a conduit for Morgana to send you a message demanding that you take him out on the town again.

So you do; once, twice, three times, a dozen and more, rambling through all your old haunts and some new ones. It's like having part of your best friend back, like a shadow of the old days. You even take him to one of Ann's photoshoots— Morgana loses his furry little shit over it, and surprisingly enough so does Ann.

She takes him out for dinner that night. When he actually starts to look hesitant and shoot glances at you, you politely disinvite yourself, the biggest shit-eating grin you've worn in a long time plastered all over your face. You won't get between a cat and his lady, not after this long, and not when she's married to the love of her life.

The two of you ramble all around Tokyo when you aren't working— even all the way to LeBlanc, where Boss is still going strong, the gray almost entirely overtaking the black in his hair and Futaba runs her whatever-she-does out of the attic. You meet up there with everyone, just like old times— Yusuke shows up sporting this dumb little goatee that Makoto immediately tells him to shave off, to everyone else's laughter.

They're all bigger and older, sharper or worn down, just like you; they don't fit up there like you all used to among the sacks of coffee grounds and shitty couch and rack full of trinkets. It's all computer servers now, and Futaba still sits like some sort of computer gremlin among them, holding Mona like a kiddy doll and waving his paws around.

It's so nice to have everyone back together, as long as you ignore the glaring Akira-shaped empty space that they've unconsciously left.

Haru's the one who eventually brings it up, as politely as she can. She's had a decade to hone her business diplomacy, but here with friends she just axes to the heart of the matter. _Why isn’t he here with you, with us?_ she asks, as gently as she can, and Morgana… He just wilts.

He's done what he can, he says, but there's only so much he can do with four paws and no one else around who can hear him.

It's not his place to, he doesn’t want to betray Akira’s trust, but he talks a little bit about empty houses, about Akira flaring up bright and dying down into ash by turns, year after year, about months spent in a haze, just barely enough executive function to keep himself and Morgana fed, to keep his job (whatever odd jobs he can, at Junes or a small electronics-fixing shop or mechanic work, anything physical, anything to keep his hands occupied and his mind empty).

He speaks about years spent living in spite of his parents, urging him to go, to do something with his life. There’s a topic he skirts, a low that he won't talk about, only referring to it in terms of a steady climb up that Akira’s been forcing his way up one step at a time— and now he’s here, back in Tokyo, because if you want to disappear there's no easier way to do it than in a city full of people, and Morgana's not entirely convinced that that's not what Akira wants to do.

But, he says, he also came back because he missed everyone, and even if he won't get in contact with them because he feels like he's missed his chance, that everyone is too different from him now, at least he exists in the same city again.

And you, tipped back in your chair this whole time, slam it back down onto four feet because this tale of misery is the last thing you wanted to hear.

You've spent the last ten years trying to live your best life, in memory of what it was like to love someone so bright; he's spent the last however long wallowing, and it makes you _furious,_ and it fills you with grief, because what kind of friend were you that he didn't feel like he could reach out? What kind of love did you offer that couldn't tether him?

_Knock it off,_ Morgana says, insistently but not unkindly. _It wasn’t you._

It's hard to look up when you're in the bottom of the hole and digging to find rock as fast as you can. It's not anyone's fault but Akira's that he rejected the support network he had.

Ann insists that they've always been there, are more than happy to still be there, he just had to reach out— Morgana interrupts her with a paw stamped on the table. He knows, and Akira knows, but that doesn't change anything! That's not how mental illness works! And he's done what he can but it's time for Akira to get his goddamn life together!

And he's trying, he _is,_ even if he doesn't think so. Moving back here was the biggest step, and now it’s Morgana’s turn to grease the wheels, to make things a little more easy for him. He knows he’s not gonna be around forever— and he says this with the most desolate expression on his face, one that makes Haru scoop him up and cuddle him to her immediately— and he can't go without knowing that Akira is going to be safe and sound for the rest of his life.

Morgana's the manifestation of all of humanity's hopes, after all, remember? And right now he's focusing all that on Akira.

There's quiet in the attic after that. Your hands are clenched into fists hard enough that your nails leave indents in your palms. There’s fire in your eyes. There's fire in everyone's eyes. Deep down, they loved him just as much as you did.

Deep down they're all sixteen and orbiting Kurusu Akira just as much as you are. But now they're self sufficient, self-propelled, and you're still the only one trapped in his gravity well.

And you admit to yourself that you've known it all along.

And you admit to yourself that as unhealthy and dysfunctional as it is you can't imagine anything else.

And you admit to yourself, deep down inside, that there's nowhere else you'd rather be.

So he's not the Akira you remember. So what? That's fine. You're not the Ryuji you once were, after all. The years have tempered you, forged you, smoothed and refined your edges, but the core of you is still sixteen and summoning lightning from your gloved hands, sixteen and facing a god at his side.

You still love him. You probably always will. It might shift and change and cool like lava rock, but it'll always be there.

So you say, _what can we do?_

And Morgana says, _be there for him, now that he’s come back to you._

So you all crowd downstairs and tell Boss the rough-made plan you cobble together, just like you did when Akira was stuck in jail those two interminable months. He's stopped smoking after Futaba made him in a fit of fury over a bout of pneumonia about 8 years ago, but he still chews on toothpicks when he's got a craving. You see him reaching for them as you tell him everything that Morgana's told you.

He's more than happy to get in on the plan, especially when Morgana tells you all about the place that they're living — _barely enough space to swing me around,_ he says, _and there’s rats in the walls the size of a loaf of bread! I can only keep things so safe, you know!_

And so Sojiro calls him up and insists he come over soon, for coffee and for Sojiro to see how he’s doing. _Humor an old man_ , he says, and everyone has to stifle their laughter at Akira's strident insistence that he's not old and that he is, in fact, probably going to be frozen in time forever.

And so you all start pulling Akira back into your lives, little by little.

He starts helping at the cafe, especially when Boss "strains his back hauling coffee beans down", and it's only with Morgana snitching on him do they realize he's still working his full evening shifts as well. They have a talk behind closed doors, one that Akira comes out of red-eyed and blotchy faced, but after that he moves into the empty bedroom in boss's house, the one that's been waiting for him since he left. He still works nights, but only half-shifts, and Boss won't let him come in for the super early mornings anymore, insisting that he get full nights of sleep. Futaba has no hesitation in cutting out his internet access if he's still awake for too long after he comes home.

Ann takes him to her salon to get his awful mess of hair back into something manageable , has him hold her things at a day-long shoot and takes him out to dinner with Shiho in the evenings. Haru talks coffee with him with the joy of someone who's been waiting for a knowledgeable conversant for far too long. His visits with Yusuke are quiet things, half-asleep in his big bay window as Yusuke chases his next muse ever onward. He doesn’t talk about what he does with Makoto, but he always comes back sweaty and tired and vanishes into the bathhouse for an hour or so at a time.

And as for you?

You're just...there.

Everyone else flocks around him, takes him here and there and tries to flood him with affection, but you? You're just _there._

The seat at the end of the bar becomes your seat, unofficially. You do all the paperwork you normally do in your office there over a plate of curry (that brings tears to your eyes the first time you spoon it in and taste that familiar blend of spices, tears of nostalgia and tears from how fucking spicy it is godDAMN Akira) and a cup of whatever Akira decides to serve you that day.

And you talk to him.

You tell him about the last ten years, you tell him about the work that you do and how happy it makes you. You tell him about the scholarships and the records and the charity races you still help out with sometimes. You tell him, when he asks, that you've dated, but you don't go into it any further. Morgana sits beside you with his little saucer of tuna and keeps the conversation going when it dies.

And it's a little awkward, a little strained, but you get to see the exhaustion and the slump in his shoulders ease away little by little over a span of months.

The summer comes, hot and muggy, and everyone insists on visiting the beach just like you all had before. It's a big noisy outing; Yusuke buys more lobsters and you laugh so hard you cry, and on the other side of the circle you're seated in Akira does too.

(He has the money for the train this time, at least; he puts them in the fishtank Haru gifted him when he helped her finish the walls of her cafe.)

It's a little bit torturous, being this close and this far from Akira after so long, but after what Morgana told you, you did some reading of your own. You wouldn’t dream of trying to therapy him, not in the slightest, but you don’t mind being there, a shoulder to lean against as he gets his feet back under him. It's not much different than what you do for a living, after all, but treating the mind instead of the body.

_B_ _e there,_ Morgana said. Be someone solid. Be that shoulder. Be that presence.

You can do that.

* * *

  
  
Now that he's back in your life, you think it might tear you to shreds if you had to let him go again. Not even romantically, if he doesn't want it, it doesn't have to be like it was. You'll always love him, of course, but he'll always be your friend first and foremost.

Rediscovering your friendship feels like walking through a nice grassy field full of landmines.

You're hesitant to invite him places, always giving him the option of an out, and most of the time he takes it. But as the months go on and summer turns to fall, sometimes he takes you up on it.

You go to the movies, to see that new "The Swift And The Seething-est" movie-- what is it, like, 9? 10? It ain’t the same since that one guy got replaced. You go get ramen in the evenings sometimes after work, too.

Morgana is always with you, of course, and god damn you didn't appreciate him enough when you were younger. He's mellowed too— he apologized once in a quiet moment for how rude he was, and you apologized back, and then you spoke nothing of it again like manly men.

Akira starts to untense around you, to spool down; he starts to show you the hints of bleakness he doesn't show anyone except Morgana, and you treasure those moments, even as they make you sad, even as they make you worried, because he's trusting you this time.

He’s trusting you to hold that weight, to see beneath that mask, and you'd rather die than betray that trust again.

You can never really understand what he's going through when he decides he wants to closet himself away, when you don't see or hear from him from two or three or four days at a time, that's okay, you don't have to. That doesn't mean that you can't sympathize, can't greet him with a smile and a clap on the shoulder when you see him again next.

As the fall turns to winter things change a little more. The weather, of course, the seasonal coffee menu Akira's started instituting, much to Boss's dismay— and the air between you and Akira.

He accepts your invitations more; you see him smile more, laugh more. Some of the easygoing air has come back into your interactions and it makes you so happy you could pop like a soap bubble.

He takes you up to see his room sometime in October. It's virtually the opposite of the attic, barely enough space for his double bed and his old tv and game system and a tiny closet, but he's got star stickers stuck all around the ceiling and his rack of goodies— he still has that old ramen bowl, you realize with a pang.

He doesn't have a couch, so you sit on the floor with your backs up against the bed, eating snacks and playing shitty video games all night just like you used to, and when your eyes finally start to get heavy and you catch him swaying like he's struggling to stay awake you know it's time to say goodnight.

He sways towards you and then jerks straight upright like he's been shocked, his hands wringing themselves in the sleeves of his overly long shirt (he dresses for comfort these days more than style, you've noticed, soft textures and loose fits; you're not smart enough to look at the deeper meanings to that, but he deserves some comfort as it is.)

You pat him on the shoulder as you say goodbye and try not to linger. It's better for both of you that way. You don't need to jank him up with your leftover feelings.

But… As October swings into November he keeps looking at you, and you feel like there's a familiarity to it underneath all the weathering.

Something inside of you yearns for it, even as the bigger part of you slaps it down. Neither of you are in any shape for this, you're not going to mess this up again, but you do spend about a week fretting over a birthday present for him. It has to be perfect, the perfect blend of friendly and personal, something that won’t go over any boundaries.

You finally decide on a couple of small things, some serious, some goofy— your favorite is a big, thick throw blanket that says "Bring me coffee and tell me I'm pretty" in English (you enlisted Ann's help for that one) but there's also some knicknacks, and a copy of a photo you've had saved for so long— the picture from the airport before you went to Hawaii, lovingly blown up to size by Futaba and framed by Makoto and Haru.

You give it to him a few days early because you’ll be on a business trip for the rest of the week, and the way he gets all still and quiet makes you nervous, but he buries his face in the blanket, and his hands shake as he sets the frame on the nightstand next to the bed.

He looks desolate, like the human equivalent of a forest burned out by a wildfire. You don't know what to do.

You want to squeeze that expression right off his face, you want to bundle him in the blanket and then in your arms and promise to take all his unhappiness away forever but that's not how lives work, that's not how people work, you can't be his everything, but, _fuck_ , you can at least be his _something—_

So you do.

You step forward and you put your hand on his shoulder, and he tenses up, but just as quickly goes slack. He steps back until his shoulder hits yours, and you stand there sharing the same space, breathing the same air, kittycorner to each other for a long, long quiet moment.

You’re full of a warmth you haven’t felt for so very, very long when you tell him goodbye and he smiles at you.

  


* * *

You’re on the last day of your business trip when you get the phone call.

Or, well, the voice message, because it comes in at 3 in the goddamn morning and you’re not awake enough to grab his phone before it ends.

You open it, squinting blurrily at the number you can't quite read, but all the message is is five seconds of shaky breathing and then a hasty hangup, so you look a little closer.

And then you call Akira back

And then again, when the phone rings through, because this is the first time he's called you since you got his number back— hell, it might be the first time he's contacted you via phone at all, which is momentous enough that you call again— and finally the fourth time he picks up, and you ask him what's wrong, and all you hear is that awful shaky breathing and then he sniffles, like he's been crying, and you sit bolt upright.

You ask him what's wrong again.

He says it's stupid.

He says he's sorry for calling you so late, but he was so afraid when he woke up.

He says he couldn't remember, all he could think about was the bright lights and the way the drug felt all hazy in his veins and in his mind like he always remembers this time of year—

And you're out of bed, and shimmying on the pants you took off maybe three hours before, and Akira's breath hiccups on the other end of the line again and before you can think you tell him you're coming back, you'll be there in a few hours, that it's gonna be okay, because how the fuck could you have let the events of the interrogation slip from your mind like that??

How could you leave without making sure someone else would be there to hold him up?

(How could you have known?)

(How could you have not known.)

You stay on the phone even as you slap together a hasty email to excuse your absence for the last day, even as you hastily snag the earliest tickets you can get on the first train back to Tokyo. You buy a portable charger at the station just so you can stay on the line, because he called you, he _called you,_ he reached out to you because he was afraid and because he trusted you and you're not going to fail him again. Not ever.

You tell him where you are when you get on the train and when you get off the train, taking a taxi instead of the subway just so you can stay on the line with him, so you don't leave him alone. Your phone dies just as you race past Leblanc, just as you're running through those familiar side alleys, and like divine providence, he opens the door as you skid around the corner.

You don't even pause.

You skid up to him in a barely-controlled slide and all but tackle him; he grabs onto your sloppy wrinkled shirt hard enough that you feel the seams pull tight, hard and tight enough to hurt but that's okay, anything's okay, you'd burn down the city for him if that's what he needed, and the gross wet sobbing into the side of your neck feels like a benediction, a blessing.

You hold him there in the space between the door tight enough that your knuckles go white, tight enough to keep him upright even as he shakes, even as he slimes your nice business shirt with tears and snot, but it's fine, it's _fine_ , you're here, he's going to be okay.

He's going to be okay. You promise.

You hold him till he calms, rocking him side to side, murmuring whatever the hell you can think of into his hair just to keep him here and grounded, and you don't let go even when he pulls back with a gross wet sniffle and a face covered in snot. It's disgusting and awful and you wouldn't trade your position here and now for a goddamn mountain's worth of tissues.

You get him inside, get the door closed, get some water in him, get him cleaned up. He's silent now, glassy-eyed and hunched, but he tracks your movements across the kitchen like he's afraid you'll disappear if he takes his eyes off of you.

Hah, there’s literally no chance in hell.

When you walk him back upstairs he makes a beeline for his new blanket and wraps it around his shoulders, paws through a drawer and hands you a baggy, oversized shirt— probably one of the ones he sleeps in— and keeps his eyes on you as you strip off your business boy shirt and pull the other one on. It's a thousand percent non-sexual, for sure— this is the least erotic situation you could imagine, but the intimacy is up to your eyeballs.

You're not going to leave him alone. You're also not going to spend an extended amount of time in your belt, so you pop that off too with your eyes averted and sit down on the bed next to him.

He sighs, something long and shuddery and exhausted and going all the way down to his bones and tips over into your side, balled up under the blanket. You wrap your arm around his shoulders again, your throat tightening at the miserable little noise he makes as he nuzzles into you, like it's been so long since he's had even this.

He can have it as much as he fucking wants, and you tell him this, mumbling it into his hair. He can have as many hugs as he wants, you'll hug him to the goddamn moon and back, thank you, thank you, _thank you_ for calling you, for letting you know, thank you for letting you _be there._

He doesn't have to be alone. You won't let him be.

He tucks himself a little more firmly under your chin and starts crying again, and that's how you spend the first half of his 27th birthday.

* * *

Sometime around noon, you think, Futaba all but kicks the door in, holding a tray of little cakes. You watch her almost drop it from under your lashes, laughing under your breath as Akira groans and turns back towards the wall. Somehow in the last few hours you've ended up with him between your propped-up legs as you lounge against the wall, his head pillowed on his blanket pillowed on your chest as you do your goddamn best to surround him with as much touch as he wants. The only way you could be touching him more is if you were squishing him into the bed, which, no.

You've got your arms around his back, both his calves tangling with yours, and you don't know how it can be comfortable in the least but you don't mind either way.

You _do_ mind Futaba yelling _what are you doing in my house?! when did you even get here!?_ but mostly because it makes Akira make a cranky noise again, so you shush her, loud and obnoxious over his head, and you feel more than hear Akira chuckle grudgingly.

Eventually he does lever himself up, does drag himself into the bathroom to wash his face and blow his nose and take care of other hygiene related things, and you give Futaba a quick explanation. Her face contorts as she sets the cake tray down, but she doesn't get a chance to say anything before Akira comes back and nestles himself into your side like it's the most casual thing in the world, like the two of you haven't been dancing around the open space between you for months.

You'll have to talk about it sooner or later. Probably later. There's a soap-bubble-thin veneer of calm holding together the storm behind Akira's eyes, you can feel it in the tense line of his shoulders and the way he holds himself. Without thinking you press the heel of your hand into his shoulder to try and get him to loosen up.

The choked noise he makes and the astonished look he gives you have you yanking it back like he's on fire.

That is _not_ a noise for polite company.

S _top being gross when I'm in the room!!!_ Futaba protests in an unconscious echo of a decade ago, a night just like this, him wrapped up in as many blankets as he could physically stand, his nose still oozing, his knuckles raw, his cheek and lip split.

You’d pressed a kiss to his knuckles then, and even in his fog of pain Akira had managed to drag up a smile for you. Here and now you just lower your hand back down and press in again, and Akira's eyes shutter.

How can one person be so goddamn touchstarved? 

How long has it been since someone held him like this?

Who was the last person?

(God fucking forbid, was it you??? The you of a decade ago???)

You eat a cake each with Futaba and then another later, downstairs with Sojiro over some birthday curry. Akira doesn't let the blanket slip from his shoulders, but he's smiling even as he stuffs his face, even as you wipe some curry mess off his cheek for him so he doesn't have to unravel himself too much.

You're still not the best at thinking ahead, so when Akira starts swaying again and you usher him back to bed, you have to hold on a second, because you're exhausted, you've been up since whenever Akira called you this morning (yesterday morning? some time in the morning?) and yet you're not going to leave him. That's not an acceptable option for either of you. 

Is this jumping in too fast? Or is this just picking up where you left off? There's absolutely some conversations that should've been had before you got to this point, but it's too late for that now. You'll have them later. Maybe tomorrow.

For now, you slide into the spot Akira's left for you and wrap your arms back around him, back to chest. He tucks himself into your hold and sighs again, one of those bone-deep weary sighs. _Would you believe,_ he says after a moment, quiet into the dark, _that this is actually one of the better birthdays Ii've had?_

 _That's prolly the saddest thing you've ever said to me, dude,_ you tell him seriously, snugging him a little tighter.  
  
He laughs , a soft, tired thing. _Yeah. I know._

His breathing's already slowing down, transmuting into deep even sleepy rhythm. You think it's safe enough to tilt your head down and just...press your face into his hair. _I'll make sure the next one's even better._

  


* * *

  


The winter drags on for ages. 

You've never liked Tokyo in the winter, the cold dirty snow and the grime everywhere, but this winter is different, because it's the first winter you've ever gotten to spend with Akira. Things are different between you two— you still haven't talked and you know you need to but it's just so nice to be able to reach over the bar and grab his hand, just cause, just to give him a tactile reminder that you're still there, and to see him turn and blink and smile at you.

You spend maybe three nights a week in his bed. More if it's a bad week, if the nightmares hit him hard.

Sometimes he comes over to your place to spend the evening, and you delight in showing off the cooking skills you've gained in the past ten years.You make your own beef bowls now, but you still pile the ginger onto his before he can do it himself.

He plasters himself to you in your tiny twin bed; it's the only way you'll both stay on, and you can't help but admit that you've desperately missed falling asleep with a warm body twined against your own. Sometimes when you wake up he's still asleep, and you can admire the elegant sweep of his lashes against his skin, and the way his bedhead looks like an actual rats nest, at your leisure. Sometimes he drools.

(It's kinda adorable.)

But other times you wake up and he's the one watching you, grey eyes still sleep-fuzzy and fathomlessly, depthlessly warm.

_God_ you want to kiss him so bad at those times, and it'd be so easy; your noses almost brush as it is when you're laying face to face, you could just lean in and go for it, but that's not what this is about. This is about comfort and stability. You promised you wouldn't leave him alone again. And honest to god you're blissfully happy just like this.

You have Akira back in your life in a way that you'd never imagined even in your wildest dreams. 

When you go out with the others now you go out as a unit again, Ryuji-and-Akira; sure you do solo things sometimes but 3/4 of the time you're already together as is, you might as well, right?

But as the winter turns towards spring and the air starts warming up, you feel Akira start to pull back, to withdraw again.

Oh _hell_ no. Not this time. This time you're both mature and rational adults and you are not panicking about him ghosting you again but forever this time, not even a little bit.

So you sit down with him over dinner one night and you initiate the most terrifying talk of your life.

_You're doing the thing you do again,_ you say as gently as you can. Akira's movements slow, then still, his chopsticks hanging in the empty space between his bowl and his mouth. _You're pullin' back because you've got some bullshit voice in the back of your head that's tellin' you you don't deserve to be happy. Am I right?_

Akira puts his chopsticks down and turns his head away. _I_ , he says, and swallows. _I've been...relying on you too much. I just wanted to...give you some space. If you needed it. Or wanted it._

 _Too much?_ you protest immediately. _Akira, there ain't nothing that's too much._

He shakes his head, but you grab his hand, standing up and scooting your chair back in the same motion to do so. _I mean it,_ you say, deadly serious, staring right into his eyes. _Akira. There's no such thing as too much when it comes to you._

 _You say that now but what about in a month?_ he demands. _Six months, a year? Five years? Ten?_

 _I'm gonna be right here,_ you say firmly, _right where I'm s’posed to be, in my goddamn spot next to you where I should've been this entire goddamn time. you think I'm gonna let you go that easy?_

 _Ryuji,_ he says, a little panicked, a little plaintive. _C'mon. You're -- you're not gonna wanna be here, you've met me, I'm a fucking mess, I'm a needy asshole, I'm a time and energy suck, all I do is take—_

 _I love you,_ you blurt out before you can bite back the words. _Akira. I've loved you for ten fucking years. I loved you when we were idiot kids trying to save the world from something we barely understood and I love you now, sitting in my kitchen wearing a Featherman shirt you stole from Futaba and looking like you've just woken up from a thirty year nap. I love you when you're happy and I love you when you're angry and I love you when you wake me up crying in the middle of the night because you're sad and you need me and I, I just, I fucking_ **_love_ ** _you and your dumb face and your garbage brain and I can't and won't ever stop loving you, okay?? I love you and you can't make me go away again, you could never drive me away because you've burrowed your way into me like some sorta big gay tapeworm and there's no way I could ever let you go._

There's a long, long silence, silence that you spend trying to catch your breath, silence that Akira breaks when his face crumples and he buries it into his hands, in long, whooping sobs. You nearly toss the table aside to get to him, falling to your knees beside him, but when he grabs your shoulders he's laugh-sobbing, shaking you until your head rattles.

 _A TAPEWORM?!_ he howls. _Th-that's your big love confession, a f-f-uh-cking t-ta-tape--_

He can't finish, he's laughing too hard, but he folds out of his chair and over you and you catch him around the waist and squeeze him until he squeaks, so that's okay too.

 _I panicked,_ you admit, your face burning. _Y'caught me off guard._

 _God,_ he says, brilliant and beautiful even red eyed and red cheeked and tearstained and snotty, and he grabs a napkin off the table to blow his nose in before he takes your face in his hands. _I don't deserve you._

 _You deserve the effin' world,_ you tell him, just as he leans in to kiss you.

It's a little gross, a little salty; Akira's a little too eager and so are you, your faces mashing awkwardly together before you pull back and start cackling, riding out the emotional high on the linoleum of your dining room floor. Akira won't stop touching you with this look of awe, your hair and your face and your shoulders, like he's been given a gift so big he doesn't know how to handle it.

  
_Wait,_ he says, sobering, _wait, wait, if we're gonna do this, I have to apologize and I have to do it right, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have ghosted you back then, it was wrong of me—_

  
_I know, I know,_ you tell him, pressing kisses to his temple, his cheek, the corner of his eye. _I forgive you, and 'm not gonna let you do it again, me 'n Mona're gonna tag-team you for the rest of your life--_  


_Sure, okay,_ he says, but he's laughing, breathless, joyful, squeezing your head so tight you feel like it might pop off.

  


* * *

  


Dating Kurusu Akira at 27 is a lot different than dating him at sixteen.  


You get to wake up in the same bed most mornings, for one. You get to make him breakfast and kiss him awake and see his grumpy little morning attitude shitface before he rolls over and pulls the covers back over his head, but not before he dry-swallows his little collection of pills out of the weekly container on the nightstand.  
  
You leave to go to your job and he to his, but you text him in your spare time and he eats the bentos you make him. You get to come home to him, sometimes making curry for dinner, sometimes sacked out on the couch in a sad little heap, and either way is fine with you because he's still there and he knows you're here for him and he knows you love him and you think he loves you too.

And the sex too, of course.  


The you that dated Akira at sixteen didn't get up to much more than heavy petting. The you that's dating Akira at 27 though…

You’re so lucky. You’re so happy.

  
The first time was almost more of an accident. You'd definitely meant to wait longer, but waking up the morning after your confession with Akira a long hot stretch of heavy weight half on top of you, his grey eyes scrunching up all self-satisfied as he rolled his hips and you groaned without meaning to, and things had...escalated.

  
You'd had another chat post-afterglow consisting mostly of _let's take this slow and go on a few dates first, alright?_ and Akira laughing in your face. You’d gone on the dates, yeah, absolutely, but you’d come home and sealed the deal almost immediately, his teeth in your shoulder as he rocked up against you, kissing him so hard he melts into it, goes pliant and purring when you slide your hand up the nape of his neck and curl your fingers into his hair.

  
He likes to be overwhelmed with touch, you discover; he loves it when you cage him in, surround him on every side with you, your lips on his neck and your leg slung over his and your hand working him in smooth, unhurried strokes while he wriggles and tries to buck up into your touch. You love to touch him in general, but having him under you, digging his nails into your neck and your shoulders and your back hard enough to hurt— that’s something special, something you treasure.  
  
He’s so responsive. You wonder sometimes in the back of your mind how many other people have touched him like this, but that's not something you need to know. You’re the one who gets to drive him out of his goddamn mind whenever he wants, now, and that’s all you need.  
He meets you at the door when you come home one evening, an evening no different from the rest except for the bright spark in Akira’s eyes, a spark that’s been dimmed the past few days as he goes through another adjustment for his antidepressants. It’s a slow-going process, and one that frustrates the both of you, but they’re not miracle pills, you’re well aware of that, and they are already helping him. You’re working through the side effects together, as you always want to be.

Before you even get a chance to kick off your shoes he’s on you, his hands sliding around your back as he plasters himself to your front, planting kisses up the stubbly line of your jaw. _Missed you,_ he says, less than a purr and more than a sigh. _Been waiting._

 _It’s been like nine hours,_ you tell him, not even trying to hide the laughter in your voice. _You’re like a fussy housecat._

 _You left me alone forever!!_ he wails, spinning on his socked foot to drape himself over your arm, forcing you to lean over as he puts more and more of his weight on you. You’ve never dropped him before, and you still have no plans to, so you indulge him and dip him backwards till his hair brushes the floor. _No one was here to feed me or pet me and I was so aloooone—_

 _Yeah, yeah,_ you say, and scoop him up to plant your mouth on his. He melts into it, as he always does, his arms looping around your neck, pressing kisses all over your face. _Are you gonna let me get dinner started, or—_

 _No one’s been around to pet me_ **_all day,_ ** he repeats, his voice dropping nearly a full octave, his eyes lidded in the smirk you love so, so much.

_So is that a no or—_

_I’m trying to be sexy!!_ Akira whines, thumping you on the shoulders with both hands, ignoring the way you immediately start cackling. _Damnit, ‘yuji, let’s just order pizza or something, I’ve been worked up all damn day waiting for you._

You can’t deny him anything he really wants. You scoop him up, both hands on his ass as he wraps his legs around your waist, and carry him into the bedroom.

He says he’s worked up, and he really is, already hard when you drop him on the bed just to watch him bounce and start stripping out of your work clothes. _What, no show?_ he asks, waggling his eyebrows; you throw your shirt so it lands over his eyes and shimmy out of your pants as you join him on the bed. He’s in your lap immediately, his tongue in your mouth, his hands sliding covetously down your chest, but you get your hands on his hips and keep him back, keeping him from rutting up against you like he wants. _You’ve been waiting for me, right? Let me take care of you._

God, you’re never gonna get over that pleased little face he makes whenever you say that. He leans back just far enough for you to get a hand between the two of you, for you to start rubbing your palm up against the bulge in his underwear as you work on kissing him breathless. You love having your hands on him, love the startled little noises he makes when you move in a way he’s not expecting.

You get him on his back before he flails a hand out, smacking it into the nightstand. _Can you finger me?_ he half-asks, half-demands. _I want you inside me._

So it’s that kind of night, huh? You have to run a hand over your own cock and readjust yourself in your underwear just to take the edge off a bit. Him being so frank with what he wants always gets you real hot. _Yeah, babe. I got you._

He gets pushy with one finger, demanding with two, breathy and high-pitched with three; you’d be more than happy to keep him like this all night, keep him teeter-tottering on the edge of orgasm for hours, playing him like a harp and keeping him strung out between your hands like taffy. You could drink in his expression forever— the way his face gets red, the way he bites his lip, his hands tangling in his own hair and tugging. But he’s insistent, the heel of his foot in the small of your back trying to hook you in, the way he gasps _please!!_ when you crook your fingers just right.

You can’t deny him anything. You fumble for the condom with your slick fingers and slide home between his thighs.

 _Next time,_ you tell him as you move, as he gasps and digs his nails into your shoulders, _next time I’m gonna hold you down and blow you for like, an hour. Next time I’m not gonna stop until you’re shouting my name so loud the neighbors call the cops._

 _Oh my god,_ he laughs, his hands slapped over his face, _you can’t— don’t hype up next time while you’re still working on this time you dork—_

You kiss him, bottoming out, savoring the cracked noise he makes, the way he clings on, the way he looks at you like you’re the only thing that matters in the world right now. _I love you,_ you tell him, _you know that, right?_

 _I do,_ he says, _I do, I love you too, Ryuji—_

And then there’s no space for words between the two of you, barely any space for breath, as you press him into the mattress, winding him up higher and higher, fueled by each noise, every scrape of his nails and press of his teeth into your shoulder, savoring every whine, every look, the way his head presses back into his pillow, the way he arches under you, the way he does, in fact cry out your name so loud that you think you hear an angry thump from the ceiling above you. You’ll have to make a pie or something, an apology pie, but that’s a concern for tomorrow, because today’s you is focused on hauling Akira’s legs up over your shoulders and getting a hand around his cock until he drags the pillow over his mouth and howls, and spills over your hand, all over his stomach.

 _Ryuji,_ he groans, blissed and satiated, and it’s enough to send you following him down.

  


* * *

  
  


Dating Kurusu Akira at 27 will always be different than dating him was at sixteen. The good days and the bad days are still there; too many of the latter for you to be fully content, but more than enough of the former to make up for it. You grow, and so does Akira, focused on bettering himself, on thriving instead of just surviving.

The pill container on the nightstand, the bi-weekly visits to a therapist, the careful routines he puts himself into— each of those things are massive, gleaming steps in the right direction, and you’re so proud, and you’re so happy for him that you could cry.

For yourself, too. The heavy band on your left ring finger, a promise just waiting for its chance to be fulfilled, is proof enough of that.  
  
The you at sixteen and the you that you are now would both agree— it was a long road, a hard and messy one, but where you’ve ended up on it makes it absolutely worth it.

 _C’mon,_ Akira says from the doorway, his own hand reaching out to yours. _We’re gonna be late. They’re waiting for us._

 _I’m here,_ you say, and twine your fingers with his. _Let’s go._

And you do.

**Author's Note:**

> >
> 
> <


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